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I don't think it's really ranked newsfeeds. It's also newsfeeds that pull in stuff you didn't specifically express an interest in. It starts with showing you st

I don't think it's really ranked newsfeeds. It's also newsfeeds that pull in stuff you didn't specifically express an interest in. It starts with showing you stuff your friends merely liked or commented on, but didn't repost. Then it's things that they merely looked at, and groups that overlap with ones you're already in. Then posts that share some arbitrary characteristic with those you've read or liked. And so on. If I were only shown things that my friends actually posted, I'd be mostly OK with ranking them except that the ranking seems unstable and ends up reshuffling everything all the time. Not pulling in random crap would also slow or reduce the spread of disinformation. It would still exist, certainly, but without being able to exploit the Facebook equivalent of SEO it might not have quite the toxic effects that it does currently. Fortunately, I know a trick that makes my feed better behaved in all of these ways. Some day they're going to kill it (they briefly did break it once already due to sheer incompetence) and then Facebook will become unusable again.

fatnoah 6y ago
>Fortunately, I know a trick that makes my feed better behaved in all of these ways. I use a trick as well. I use the "Stop Showing Me This" option in the FB newsfeed. It took a couple days, but now I get zero political content.
t-writescode 6y ago
> I don't think it's really ranked newsfeeds. That's .... a kind of ranking. Personalized ranking made by algorithms based on what they want to show you using their own patterns is still ranking. Dynamically adjusting ranking based on new data (or not) is still ranking.
- notacoward 6y ago
  As anyone who has worked with databases probably knows (definitely should know), selection and ordering/ranking are two different things.
  - t-writescode 6y ago
    Could you explain this further? I'm using the generic term "ranking". It seems like you're using a very specific subset of an industry's version of 'ranking', and you're mixing it with the word "ordering". And, "as anyone who has worked with software development probably knows (definitely should know), ranking/ordering/sorting can be done in many different ways".
    - notacoward 6y ago
      > an industry's version of 'ranking' Citation needed. "Ranking" in plain English is practically synonymous with sorting, and it's no different in computing, unless you're in some very specialized pocket where they've twisted it. The difference is that it's possible to show different posts first within the same set and IMO that's not particularly problematic. What's problematic is when Facebook selects a different set. Those posts I didn't ask for shouldn't just be at the bottom of the list; they shouldn't be on it. In an infinite-scroll world these phases do get interleaved a bit. Query, sort, show top N, repeat. Some posts might get dropped in the "show top N" part, but the point is that those posts I didn't ask for should never even have come back from the first query. In SQL terms, it's the WHERE that's broken, not the ORDER BY or LIMIT. (Yes, I know it's not SQL. I could tell you exactly what it is, but I'm still bound by a legal document that says I shouldn't.) It's really not that subtle or unusual a distinction, and I'm sure most people understood it. Why are you so invested in a weird definition?

fatnoah 6y ago

>Fortunately, I know a trick that makes my feed better behaved in all of these ways. I use a trick as well. I use the "Stop Showing Me This" option in the FB newsfeed. It took a couple days, but now I get zero political content.

t-writescode 6y ago

> I don't think it's really ranked newsfeeds. That's .... a kind of ranking. Personalized ranking made by algorithms based on what they want to show you using their own patterns is still ranking. Dynamically adjusting ranking based on new data (or not) is still ranking.

notacoward 6y ago
As anyone who has worked with databases probably knows (definitely should know), selection and ordering/ranking are two different things.
- t-writescode 6y ago
  Could you explain this further? I'm using the generic term "ranking". It seems like you're using a very specific subset of an industry's version of 'ranking', and you're mixing it with the word "ordering". And, "as anyone who has worked with software development probably knows (definitely should know), ranking/ordering/sorting can be done in many different ways".
  - notacoward 6y ago
    > an industry's version of 'ranking' Citation needed. "Ranking" in plain English is practically synonymous with sorting, and it's no different in computing, unless you're in some very specialized pocket where they've twisted it. The difference is that it's possible to show different posts first within the same set and IMO that's not particularly problematic. What's problematic is when Facebook selects a different set. Those posts I didn't ask for shouldn't just be at the bottom of the list; they shouldn't be on it. In an infinite-scroll world these phases do get interleaved a bit. Query, sort, show top N, repeat. Some posts might get dropped in the "show top N" part, but the point is that those posts I didn't ask for should never even have come back from the first query. In SQL terms, it's the WHERE that's broken, not the ORDER BY or LIMIT. (Yes, I know it's not SQL. I could tell you exactly what it is, but I'm still bound by a legal document that says I shouldn't.) It's really not that subtle or unusual a distinction, and I'm sure most people understood it. Why are you so invested in a weird definition?